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“Yes,” said Hakim.
“Then let us leave this place.” He took a final look around and said, “We have done such a good job of hiding our tracks, it is possible the Americans will never know that we have used this place.”
Hakim looked at his friend and with a bit of regret in his voice said, “After today, I am afraid the Americans will hunt us to the ends of the earth.”
“Let them try. You have arranged our departure?”
Hakim nodded. “Everything is taken care of.”
CHAPTER 70
RAPP saw them when he was halfway down the spiral staircase. They were hard to miss. There must have been fifteen of them, at least half of whom were carrying briefcases. They looked like a team of litigators who’d been sent over from a rival law firm for an afternoon of depositions. Rapp saw Art Harris talking to the two men at the front of the pack. It appeared, by the way he was pointing and gesturing, that he was trying to buy Rapp some time.
Rapp let loose a heavy sigh and rolled his sleeves up one more turn. He didn’t have much of a strategy, but one thing was for sure: if these guys wanted to, they had every right to simply push him out of the way and walk out the door with his four prisoners. He had only a couple of cards to play, and neither was likely to intimidate these stone-faced bastards. His only real hope was that these guys would be every bit as pissed-off as he was that three bombs had just gone off in downtown Washington, D.C., killing and injuring hundreds.
Harris turned as Rapp came walking up, and said, “Speak of the devil. Here he is.” Harris gestured to the two men at the head of the group. “Mitch, this is Abe Ciresi, Deputy AG, National Security Division, and Malcolm Smith, Deputy Assistant AG, Criminal Division.”
Rapp stuck out his hand. Ciresi was a little shorter than Rapp and had light red hair. He looked as though he’d probably played football as a kid. Smith was Rapp’s height and whip-thin. Rapp figured him to be one of those guys who got up and ran five miles every morning at 5:00 a.m. “Sorry we’re not meeting under better circumstances.”
Ciresi agreed with the sentiment, but Smith had only one thing on his mind. Looking over Rapp’s shoulder, he asked, “Where are the prisoners?”
Rapp ignored him and returned the slight by looking over Smith’s shoulder. “Boy, you sure did bring a lot
of people. I would have thought you guys would be out trying to catch your own bad guys.”
Harris let loose an uncomfortable laugh and took a step back.
Smith, with a troubled frown on his face, looked Rapp over from head to toe and then said, “Let’s step over here, where we can talk in private.”
Ciresi followed and the three of them moved about twenty feet away. Smith unbuttoned his suit coat and set down his briefcase. “I was warned about you, Rapp.”
“Really…by who?” Rapp couldn’t have cared less, but he figured the longer he could keep this guy talking the more time he would give Nash with Aabad.
“Let’s just say that in certain circles your reputation is well known. I don’t want this to escalate into some big pissing match between the DOJ and the CIA.”
“We know you’ve done all the heavy lifting,” Ciresi quickly added, “and we’re not here to steal any of the credit for breaking this thing.”
“Although, you might want us to, before this is all said and done,” Smith added.
“And why would I want you to do that?” Rapp asked.
“For the life of me,” Smith said as he shook his head and looked around the room, “I’m still trying to figure out what a couple of spooks from Langley were doing poking around a mosque right about the time these bombs started going off.”
“I…”
“No…” Smith said, cutting him off, “I don’t want to hear it. I want you and Ridley to get your stories straight before you talk to any of us.”
“I know Rob,” Ciresi offered. “He’s a good man.”
Rapp was starting to get the idea that maybe these weren’t pricks after all.
“So our problem,” Smith continued, “is that we have a body in the morgue. It appears that the guys you picked up had something to do with that.”
“Yeah…one of them has already admitted to the whole thing.”
“Without being Mirandized?” Ciresi asked.
“Of course not,” Rapp said. “I don’t Mirandize people.”
